The Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia focuses on research and teaching in the Asian humanities, with particular emphasis on cultures, literatures, religions, and languages. Our mission is to engage in wide-ranging humanistic scholarship that transcends the boundaries of language, geographic region, nation, and religious identity and to impart the significance of a humanistic study of Asia to students, as well as to other members of the university and beyond. This mission of the department promotes Asian humanities as something not merely to learn about but also, and more importantly, to learn from. .